Teaching at Covenant Seminary in Fall 2013

To our Congregation (and other interested parties):

I’m writing to let you all know that I have received an amazing opportunity to teach the Ancient and Medieval Church History course at Covenant Seminary this fall. Just to alleviate any concern right off the bat, this is a part-time adjunct appointment which does not signal the change (or any intention to change) of my role at Christ Our King.

This course is a part of the core curriculum for all those training for the pastorate at Covenant Seminary. The subject is right in the area of my PhD work (I majored in Medieval and minored in Ancient). This is a wonderful opportunity for my career, as I seek to develop my involvement in academics, and also, I believe, for our church.

The course meets twice a week (Tues/Thurs) at 8:30AM, so I will have to travel to St. Louis two mornings a week. This amounts to a full day’s work per week. This will not affect any of the commitments I currently have in weekly church events, which for now happen on Wednesday or Sunday. The seminary is providing a teaching assistant to help lessen the work of grading (this is a huge blessing!).

While we are on this topic, let me take a moment to describe how I see myself pursuing the academic side of my ministry so as to hopefully alleviate any potential concerns. I feel strongly called to be a pastor-scholar. This means that I really enjoy and feel called to the pastorate. I enjoy being your pastor. I’m not looking at the pastorate as a stepping stone to an academic career. Yet, at the same time, I have gifts and a calling to the academic side of ministry as well. I am seeking to find the balance of old struck by pillars such as Augustine and Ambrose who were both pastors and scholars to the great benefit of their own congregations and the church at large. This is not to say that I think of myself on their level (how ludicrous would that be?), but that I look to them as a model for ministry.

So, to be clear, this does not in any way signal that my real desire is to be a professor and that this is just the first step back into that world. No, I want to be a pastor-scholar, and what this signals is that I am seeking to be faithful to the gifts God has given me and with the education I have been given, both in the pastorate and in the academic world.

Please give thanks with me for this wonderful opportunity, and pray for me as I seek to balance my life between these two pursuits this fall.